The last part of my Africa trip involved a lot of planes, multiple countries and a lot of Safari rides! how best to condense it? a new 10 things I love about… of course! so Here goes my attempt to reduce 10 days of Safari into 10 thing I love! (and use my pictures)
1. Conquering the big five
Before you go on Safari you hear about the big five, and we have to say we were very lucky to be able to see them within our first three rides out. Some pictorial evidence:
Lion
we got pictures of Lions in all sort of funny poses!
Rhino 
Elephants
Leopard
Buffalos
2. The fact that it’s so much more than the big 5 I was particularly amazed with what i called the exotic prints: I loved the giraffes, the zebras and the cheetahs.
The extent and diversity of the antelope family was amazing, from springboks to impalas, to Sables and everything in between, gorgeous and wonderful.And that was just the start so many more interesting creatures that make the wonder of the bush like Wilderbeasts, wharthogs (pumbas!!), wild dogs and many more
3 Hotels, especially the Royal Malewane Every single hotel we stayed in was spectacular, although clearly I liked some more than others. However in general I was amazed at how incredible the hotels and services were, for it to be in the middle of the bush! Such luxury whilst on safari I thought was amazing.
My favorite hotel we stayed at was the incredible Royal Malewane in Kruger. Everything was just magical and perfectly executed. Great Rooms, amazing service, and the best guide we had all trip long!
The other hotels were the Matetsi River Lodge when we went to Victoria Falls and Abu CAmp in Botwswana’s Okavango Delta. Matetsi was beautiful very new and very comfortable. Their manager was amazing, although some of their staff really needed a bit more training. However the issue is that the game that we saw here was way below the other camps. I think it’s a growing area and it will be a fabulous place to go in a few years.
As for Abu Camp, the problem was that as fabulous as it was it did not meet my expectations. There were quite a few things that were just not together in terms of service. And worse of all, their wifi was down for the whole duration of our trip which we did not appreciate and not exactly what we would expect from a Peter Allen owned property.
some general things that were amazing: Hot water bottles, coffee in the middle of the bush in our safari cars, lots and lots of blankets for the cold and my personalized safari treats that were gluten free!
4. The luxurious bathrooms
In general throughout Africa I was amazed at how big and gorgeous the bathrooms were. I already blogged about the beauty of the bathrooms in capetown and Franchooek and in Safari they did not disappoint. Here were the three gorgeous bathrooms:
Royal Malewane:
Matetsi River Lodge:
Abu Camp:
5. The African sunset. Every day it was different, every day it was more gorgeous. I have a full photographic study of Africa sunsets, here are some of my highlights:
from South Africa:
Botswana:
Zimbabwe:
and with that the concept of Sundowners Relate to the Above, the concept of Sundowners. Such a cool concept in all places, of having nice drinks whilst looking at the amazing sunsets. In the bush we got them in all sort of ways, in boats, in the car and in the bush resting on persian rugs! (yes lots of credit to Abu CAmp for my favorite Sundowner experience)
6. The Food and the Wine. I think part of the concept of being in Safari is stuffing you like a turkey. But in reality , when you think all the food is included, you don’t expect it to be fabulous. But it was. First of all, in all the places we stayed they catered to my ridiculous food allergies demands expertly. They were so nice than in even the cars for a coffee in the bush they would send me gluten-free cookies! But in general the concept was great food and also lots of food. We were doing in some camps 6 meals a day! and all delicious. I especially liked the decadent breakfasts and the traditional meals.
7. Victoria Falls: Beautiful place to visit. The city not so much, but worth it to walk and look at the magesticness of it all (that’s not a word, it should be a word).
8. Baby Animals: My sister’s hashtag for the trip was #searchingforbabyanimals and we more than fulfilled the brief. We saw so many baby animals and they were too cute!: Elephants, leopards, zebra, giraffe, wild dogs, warthog.
This shot of the baby elephant and night was my favorite:
9. The Elephant Walk
Whilst at Abu Camp one of the activities was walking through the bush with the elephants. I didn’t think much of it at first but it was one of my favorite things of the trip. Standing on the ground next to really big animals but feeling protected by the elephants was a wonderful experience. We also got to feed them afterwards which was great
10. Bush landscapes The landscape its just gorgeous. Beautiful trees, stars for days,
Things I didn’t love?
- tiny planes
- Zimbabwe’s airports. customs, border controls, government officials. Basically anything that involved the government of Zimbabwe
- the spiders
- The rough terrain of the Okavango, the rides where much smoother in Zimbabwe and Kruger
- The morning weather, Although i highly recomend going in this time of Winter, as there are little bugs and lots of animals to see, it is a must to wear a beanie hat and jacket in the morning because it gets cold!
Tati's Tidbits 